The Sky is Falling

A hypochondriac is someone who is obsessed by the idea that they have an illness of some kind when, most of the time, there is no actual condition to be concerned with. I bring that up because in the world of fantasy baseball it seems like there is an epidemic of hypochondria akin to the zombie apocalypse that is portrayed in the television show The Walking Dead. People are freaking out. I’m talking, losing their minds type of situations.

The world is ending.
Life is meaningless.
Resistance is futile.

In what follows are a sampling of the questions I’ve been receiving at the BaseballGuys’ Twitter account. Am I being over dramatic with my lead in to this piece? You tell me after reading the following questions/thoughts I’ve received.

I have Erick Aybar at SS but want to improve and have been offered Jed Lowrie for my Joe Mauer.

How long do I hold on to Edwin Encarnacion? He is killing my average.

I know early season, but do you drop Yovani Gallardo for any of these: Clay Buchholz, Hisashi Iwakuma, or Hyun-Jin Ryu?

Do I dump Roy Halladay for Barry Zito, Ervin Santana, Jhoulys Chacin, or Phil Hughes?

Drop Hiroki Kuroda for Alex Cobb? Points league.

Edwin Jackson worth a drop to grab Garrett Richards?

Someone dropped Jason Kipnis in a first year keeper, keep 15.

I get Matt Kemp for Chris Davis. Good move?

I’m not kidding… that’s what you folks are sending me. Let’s go tweet by tweet, quickly though, since there is no reason to spend too much time dealing with this junk.

Lowrie has never played 100 games in a big league season. Mauer is a career .322 hitter who has made five All-Star teams, won four Silver Slugger awards and he is the 20th ranked player in baseball in career WAR among active players (according to BaseballReference).

Encarnacion has gone 2-for-27 leading to a sickly .074 average. Last season he went 1-for-22 from May 3rd to May 9th and he hit .280 on the season. He also hit 42 homers with 110 RBIs.

Gallardo has won 14 games each of the past three seasons, and he’s struck out 200 batters in 4-straight seasons. None of the other three names listed has ever struck out 200 in a season, and only one has even a single season of 14 wins. Oh, and two of them entered the year with less than 20 combined big league starts while the other has made 20 starts twice in the last five years.

Halladay looked bad in camp, and has been similarly poor in his first two starts, but really? There’s a reason that Zito, Santana, Chacin and Hughes weren’t drafted in mixed leagues until the rounds hit the legal drinking age on draft day (folks over at Fleaflicker are staying the course with Halladay as he’s still owned in 92 percent of leagues).

I really like Cobb and his potential, but Kuroda is coming off a season of 16 victories, a 3.32 ERA, 1.17 WHIP and 167 Ks. Let me know when Cobb reaches a single one of those numbers over a full season.

EJax or Richards? Do I really need to even say anything?

Kipnis was dropped in a league with 15 keepers? Asinine.

Do you trade a flawed hitter on an immense run of success in Davis for an MVP caliber talent that has a season in which he was the greatest fantasy player in the land in Kemp?

Do you see why my blood pressure sometimes goes up, why I’m occasional obnoxious on Twitter, or why I’m frequently dressing down callers on my radio show?

Seriously folks. Let me harken back to an old catch phrase: take a chill pill. Let things marinate. Exercise patience. Life isn’t that bad. Trust your draft. Trust your instincts. Trust me. Stay the course. If you do, you’ll come out in a better place on the back end. Trust me.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: September 19, 2012

(1) Ian Kinsler a dynamic option at second base.

(2) What do Chase Headley, Ryan Braun and Alfonso Soriano have in common?

(3) Yonder Alonso streaking at the dish.

(4) Tim Lineceum turned his season around.

(5) Erick Aybar producing in the average and steals columns.

(6) Orioles call up phenom Dylan Bundy.

By Ray Flowers

Player Profile: Cliff Pennington

Often times we find ourselves spending all our time talking and thinking about the elite players. People always want to know who to take in the first round or when they should grab their ace on draft day.  At the same time, people rarely talk about those glue guys that often make the difference between winning and losing. Think back to the draft table in 2011. How many people cared when they called out the names of Asdrubal Cabrera, Alex Gordon and Jhonny Peralta? Yet when all was said and done all three had impressive seasons that helped many a squad to a championship. Today I’ll highlight one of those players who you might want to think about late in drafts (especially in mixed leagues that use the corner and middle infield positions).

Cliff Pennington, for those of you who don’t know, plays shortstop for the Athletics, you know, that green and yellow team on the west coast that seemingly trades away it’s best players year after year. A decent little ballplayer, Pennington has a couple of things going for him. First, no one really cares about him. That means he will be extremely cheap to add to your squad on draft day. He’ll also likely make a solid addition if your starter at shortstop comes down with an injury early in the year forcing you to hit the waiver-wire looking for a warm body. Second, Pennington steals bases. He’s not going to push Jose Reyes for the positional lead in steals but he’s swiped 43 bases the last two years, a total only five other shortstops can better (Reyes 69, Elvis Andrus 69, Erick Aybar 52, Hanley Ramirez 52 and Jimmy Rollins 47). In an AL-only league, or a 15 team mixed league, 20+ steals from a middle infielder is a decent addition to any club.

Now I’m not going to sit here and blow soft kisses to you to hide the fact that Pennington isn’t exactly an offensive powerhouse. The owner of 18 career homers, Pennington has nonetheless knocked in an average of 51 runs the past two seasons while scoring an average of 61 runs a campaign. Those numbers are all blah, I agree, but when combined they’re really not that bad a set. Guess how many shortstops, the past two years, have scored 120 runs, knocked in 100 and stolen 40 bases? Rather shockingly the answer is just four: Hanley Ramirez, Jimmy Rollins, Ian Desmond and Pennington.

While consistent playing time helps with the counting numbers (Pennington has appeared in an average of 152 games the past two years), it will also allow his less than impressive batting average to drag your club down. A .259 career hitter, Cliff has hit .250 and .264 the last two years. There is some hope for a potential run at .280. After all, Pennington does own an impressive 22.1 percent line drive rate. One would expect a pretty high BABIP given that impressive LD-rate, but instead Pennington owns a .310 career mark that is only .010 points above a league average number. As we all should know by now, players set their own benchmarks in this respect, so while it seems like Pennington should post a higher BABIP maybe he won’t though his .342 mark from 2009 does give some hope. Toss in a 0.47 BB/K mark for his career though and the prospects of any substantial batting growth should be concerned a bit of a long-shot.

Pennington is not going to pull an Asdrubal Cabrera in 2012. He’s not going to morph into a difference maker, but if he shows only some slight improvement, let’s say to the .270-10-60-70-20 range, he could be an extremely useful up the middle depth play in deep mixed leagues. Don’t reach on Pennington at any point in your draft, but when you’re sitting there in the 25th round wondering whose name you should call out consider the shortstop of the Oakland Athletics.

By Ray Flowers

Overlooked Greatness

Today I’ll point out some guys that have been pretty darn amazing this year even if you really haven’t taken much notice. Greatness might be too strong a word, I’ll freely admit that, but I needed to catch your attention.

CATCHER: Matt Wieters
Finally living up to expectations, Wieters had a big year for the Orioles. He may have only hit .262, but he socked 20 homers with 65 RBI and 70 runs scored. As a result he was the only catcher in baseball who hit .260 with 20 homer and 70 runs scored.

FIRST BASE: Casey Kotchman
I know the guy hit only 10 homers, had only 48 RBI ans scored just 43 times. Those are horrible numbers for a corner infielder unless you’re in an AL-only league. But give the guy some credit. He has hit .305 over 495 at-bats. That’s a better batting average than Michael Morse (.303), Albert Pujols (.301) and Prince Fielder (.295) to name just three.

SECOND BASE: Danny Espinosa
Limited for sure, that .235 batting average and .311 OBP are awful, Espinosa has still had an impressive run. Not only did he become just the third rookie second baseman in history with 20 homers (the others were Dan Uggla with 27 and Alexei Ramirez with 21), he also stole 16 bases while scoring 72 runs. Only four second basemen hit 20 homers with 70 runs and 15 steals – Ian Kinsler, Dustin Pedroia, Kelly Johnson and Espinosa.

THIRD BASE: Mark Reynolds
What the hell you’re saying? I know he hit .222 and struck out 192 times, but with all the injuries at third base this season his effort was mighty impressive. He was second at the position in homers with 37 (Jose Bautista had 43), 6th in RBI (86) and third in runs. Not too shabby for an afterthought to many.

SHORTSTOP: Erick Aybar
The Angels’ shortstop hit .280 with 10 homer, 59 RBI, 71 runs scored and 30 steals. Do you know how many shortstops went .275-10-50-70-30 this year? The answer is one. Even if we drop the steal total to 20, only two other men join the list – Jimmy Rollins and Starlin Castro.

OUTFIELD: Torii Hunter
I know what you’re thinking – Ray has finally hit on the neighbor’s wife one too many times, had too many drinks with an umbrella in it, and has spent too much time staring at touchdown runs the past month to remember what the hell he is talking about when it comes to baseball. I mean, didn’t Hunter hit horribly for months on end this year (.214 in April, .224 in June, .209 in July)? The answer to that is yes, Hunter did post a terrible batting average for long stretches, but that’s precisely why he was such an overlooked player this season. I’m not going to defend the league average .262 batting average, that’s a poor mark. However, did you know that Hunter will end the year with 20 homers, 80 RBI, and 80 runs scored (He has 23 homers, 82 RBI and 80 runs)? Only 15 outfielders hit all three of those marks in 2011 putting Hunter in some rather solid company despite the nauseating roller coaster ride he put his owners through.

By Ray Flowers